Theatre Reviews
As You Like It/The Tempest, Old Vic, LondonThursday, 24 June 2010
The second season of the Bridge Project - a transatlantic relationship forged between between Kevin Spacey, artistic director at the Old Vic in London, theatre and film director Sam Mendes, and Joseph Melillo, executive producer of the Brooklyn Academy of Music - which aims to make theatrical connections in a series of cross-cast co-productions with American and British actors, has opened with a double header of Shakespeare. Read more... |
Welcome to Thebes, National TheatreWednesday, 23 June 2010
“Tragedy reminds us how to live,” declares Moira Buffini’s democratically elected heroine, Eurydice. It’s a reminder the playwright herself and her latest work, Welcome to Thebes, is eager to provide. Following on the well-worn heels of last season’s Mother Courage at the National comes a new play that once again places women in the front line. Read more... |
Sucker Punch, Royal Court TheatreMonday, 21 June 2010
The poster for Sucker Punch, Roy Williams's ambitious new play about boxing and race during the schism-prone age of Margaret Thatcher, promises a sort of black British Raging Bull: There in one graphic image are the blood and sweat, the bravado and the pain, of a sport that for self-evident reasons makes it to the stage relatively rarely. How do you set... Read more... |
Lulu, Gate TheatreThursday, 17 June 2010
What kind of play is Frank Wedekind's Lulu? The answer is a very odd one, with a fractured writing history. Wedekind subtitled his original five-act exploration of raw femininity, in 1894, "A Monster Tragedy", then divided it into two: Earth Spirit and Pandora's Box. Read more... |
Through a Glass Darkly, Almeida TheatreThursday, 17 June 2010
Perhaps it's because the Almeida had a major hit with Festen (well, everywhere but Broadway) that the Scandinavian back catalogue of movies seems every bit as ripe for plunder as is mainstream Hollywood when it comes to feeding musicals on Broadway and the West End. Read more... |
Like a Fishbone, Bush TheatreMonday, 14 June 2010
One of the many absent friends in contemporary British drama is the play that tackles questions of religious belief. At a time when more and more people take their faith more and more seriously, this lacuna at the heart — or should that be soul? — of new work is surely regrettable. But perhaps the tide is now turning: in May, Drew Pautz’s Love the Sinner at the National examined belief and sexuality; now Australian playwright Anthony Weigh, whose new play opened last night, wrestles... Read more... |
The Fantasticks, Duchess TheatreThursday, 10 June 2010
Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the musical theatre (Paradise Found, anyone?), along comes The Fantasticks, and we are returned to square one. Read more... |
After the Dance, National TheatreWednesday, 09 June 2010
A pall of ennui hangs over the 1930s drawing room of the National’s latest Rattigan revival, as deadly as the boredom its burnt-out party people all dread. Read more... |
The Crucible, Regent's Park Open Air TheatreFriday, 04 June 2010
Usually a seasonal home for the pastel-coloured delights of drawing-room farce, musical comedy and the odd Shakespeare pastoral, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre is this year offering a programme of rather darker hue. Read more... |
The Late Middle Classes, Donmar WarehouseWednesday, 02 June 2010
The late Simon Gray, who died in 2008, lived a ragged, bruised and battering life. I usually think of him as the John Prescott of playwrights, except that he was miles more articulate, and eventually rewarded by a CBE rather than a peerage. Anyway, he was pugnacious and out of step with playwriting trends. In an age of lefty state-of-the-nation dramas, Gray explored the emotions of upper-middle-class characters and their difficulties with communication. Although he could be irascible, and his... Read more... |
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★★★★★
‘A compulsive, involving, emotionally stirring evening – theatre’s answer to a page-turner.’
The Observer, Kate Kellaway
Direct from a sold-out season at Kiln Theatre the five star, hit play, The Son, is now playing at the Duke of York’s Theatre for a strictly limited season.
★★★★★
‘This final part of Florian Zeller’s trilogy is the most powerful of all.’
The Times, Ann Treneman
Written by the internationally acclaimed Florian Zeller (The Father, The Mother), lauded by The Guardian as ‘the most exciting playwright of our time’, The Son is directed by the award-winning Michael Longhurst.
Book by 30 September and get tickets from £15*
with no booking fee.
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